Question for the Pro's

bace · Mar 2, 2009

So, I've recently invested in a couple of strobes and just did a shoot on the weekend. Pictures turned out fine but I was trying to get some hair light from one side and couldn't figure it out (I was doing it wrong and have since been told how to do it right) my question is, before I purchased the strobes I used a couple of stationary lamps with bulbs that were treated to give off the white light (the blue ones I can't remember technical term). Is it possible to use one of those as a hair light by just dropping the shutter speed down to 1/150th or something? Will it be bright enough. I know I could just trying but I don't even want to try with what I have if I know it won't work. I was thinking of even putting a gel on it or something as well and get some cool colors here and there.

If anyone has done something like this before I'd love to hear about it!
Thanks!

Big Mike · Mar 2, 2009

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Big Mike · Mar 2, 2009

It certainly can work and you will be able to use the shutter speed to control the exposure from the 'hot' lights. It will, of course, depend on the exposure that you are using for your flash/strobe exposure. If you are shooting at F16, then you would need a really bright hot light to show up and shutter speeds faster than 1/15 (for example). If you model is moving, this could create some motion blur issues from the ambient light.

Personally, I prefer to stick with strobes.

And ya, putting gels on the hair lights can be pretty cool. I did a shoot where we used a grid and a purple gel for the hair light, to accent the crazy hair coloring on the model...it worked well except that we had to watch for purple light spilling onto the model...which we didn't want.